Queen of the Struggle

by Nik Korpon

  “And more important,” Magnus says, his voice dropping nearly a full octave into a terrifying range, “you said you were with us.”

  “And I am,” I tell them both. “I helped you free those ändes, and I helped you plan the offensive.”

  “We need you involved,” Dyvik shouts. “We’re already dangerously short. You have seen this, Henraek. We have discussed this. We need people with experience, and all three of them are in the store right now.”

  “I understand that,” I say, measuring all of my words, “but I need to get back to Eitan. Immediately.”

  “What happened?” Magnus says.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. How am I supposed to explain years of sociopolitical warfare to them in two minutes – or less, because I need to get the hell out of here? Then I remember that they’ve been studying our country, our city, our war, for nearly as long.

  “You know who Brighid Tobeigh is?”

  They nod.

  “You know how she rode in with her father, Daghda, and everyone thought she was going to be our savior?”

  Again, they nod.

  “Emeríann had a letter smuggled to me. It turns out, making Eitan a satellite of Brusandhåv wasn’t enough. She and her troops have been systematically wiping out the remaining rebels. I don’t know how they’re doing it, I don’t know what their end goal is, I don’t know how much if anything Ødven knows about this. But I need to get back and help my people. Taking down Ødven will do nothing for Eitan if Eitan is already destroyed. So, please,” I say, “I need your help.”

  Dyvik and Magnus exchange glances, then look back to me.

  “There’s no way out of Rën,” Dyvik says. “Not anything quick.”

  “Define quick.”

  “There are ships that come in and out of the harbor in Vårgmannskjør each day,” Magnus says. “But the only ones you can sneak on to are cargo ships. And those are guarded heavily.”

  “Pack me into the cargo. I can wait two days like that. I’ve done worse.”

  “What about your boys?” Magnus says.

  I cringe internally, telling myself not to get overzealous. Though they may be tough for their age, there’s no way they’d be able to handle that.

  Dyvik shakes his head. “They run heat-scanners across everything that goes on or comes off the ships.”

  “They’re checking for people sneaking in?”

  “No. Mostly watching for defectors.” Dyvik thinks a minute. “The only way to do it is to pay a smuggler. But I don’t know anyone who operates out of Vårgmannskjør. Do you?” he says to Magnus, who shakes his head no.

  “Then how the hell are we going to get back?” I fight to keep my voice under control. “We got into this goddamned country and now we can’t get out?”

  “I warned you,” Dyvik says.

  “The only thing I can think of,” Magnus says, “is the freighter that Andrei pilots.”

  “You’re not serious,” Dyvik says.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Who else has a ship and will come out here?” Magnus says. “We don’t have a safe harbor like those ynkedoms in Vårgmannskjør.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say it again louder.

  “But that man is insane. And he’s a drunkard. He is not someone who should be trusted with any type of cargo we want to remain intact and–”

  “Oi!” I yell it this time. They both fall silent. The refrigeration units hum quietly. “I am not cargo, and I cannot stand by idly while my people are slaughtered. Now, I don’t give a shit whether this guy likes to gargle with bourbon. We need to get back and if he’s the one who can take us without us dying, that’s who we’re going with. Now, are you going to raise him or what?”

  Dyvik mumbles something I can’t understand.

  Magnus looks at me. “Things are different in Brusandhåv than they are in Eitan. When we pledge ourselves to something, we do it fully. Even if the penalty is death. Maybe that is why your revolution in Eitan failed.” He clears his throat. “Both times.”

  Before I can respond to the amadan, the front door swings open and two Ragjarøn soldiers in grey fatigues enter the store. Magnus visibly stiffens, though Dyvik says something under his breath that I assume is supposed to calm him.

  Dyvik nods at the soldiers, says, “När du går.”

  They respond, but keep their eyes on me. Did Ødven send them? Are they here to check on me or to tell me my services are no longer needed and assassinate me?

  “Local unit. You’re OK,” Dyvik whispers to me, as if he could read my mind. “For now.”

  The soldiers pass behind us, headed to the cooler where sandwiches are stored. I can hear Magnus grinding his teeth.

  “Good club this year,” I say to no one in particular. “Axel’s looking strong as a striker. This could be a good year for our Höjden.”

  “I’ve been on him a lot. Pushing him hard.” Magnus’s mouth says words but his brain is someplace far away. “If he keeps his knee over the ball, he will score with more power.”

  “Yeah, definitely,” I say.

  Sandwiches in hand, the soldiers come to the counter. Magnus and I step aside. The taller soldier makes extended eye contact with me, as if he’s trying to send me a message or gauge my level of involvement with two known Nyväg members.

  “I’ve seen them play in the field. They are good. Your boy especially,” the soldier says to me in English. My muscles tighten. Is that a warning? Is he threatening my boys? “When is the next match?”

  “Two weeks,” Dyvik says, cutting in. He holds out his hand, palm up, asking them for money for their sandwiches.

  The other soldier hands Dyvik a few bills.

  “Maybe we will see them,” the soldier says. “It’s been a while since we saw a match.”

  “We’ll keep an eye out,” Dyvik says to them, not backing down a bit.

  The taller soldier gives me a long look before nodding and heading out of the store. I listen to myself breathe, watching them until they disappear down the street. Once I’m sure they’ve gone, I look to Dyvik.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “They’re fine,” he says. “They’re locals here. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “That didn’t seem like nothing. He mentioned my son. Specifically. How does he know who he is?”

  “He’s local. Your boys are not. They stand out,” Dyvik says.

  “And you were sent here by Ødven himself,” Magnus says. “Every local soldier knows your face. They think you are embedding yourself with us in order to… what did you call it, restore order?”

  He does have a point. But it doesn’t make me feel any better about them mentioning Donael.

  “Which reinforces my point. You cannot leave now,” Magnus says. “It will raise too much suspicion.”

  “You have three choices.” I step closer to him, and god damn is he huge. He and Forgall could’ve taken out half the soldiers themselves. “You can do it without me, or you can wait until I’m done in Eitan and can return.”

  “When’s that?” Dyvik says.

  “When I’m done and can return.” I fix my stare on Magnus, his big chest quivering with anger. “Or the third choice, I can shoot you in the face because you won’t help me, and you can try to launch your revolution without a face. Now,” I say to both of them, “who’s going to raise this Andrei?”

  The store hums with silence, quieter than I would have thought it could be. After a minute, Magnus moves toward the front door.

  “I’ll raise him now.”

  He lets the door close behind him, leaving Dyvik and me alone in his store.

  Dyvik starts to talk but I cut him off. “I’m not trying to be dismissive of your plight. I understand what you’re feeling and I understand your situation. But you also have to understand where I’m coming from.”

  “I do.” He nods. “Really, I do. But you’ve already seen what we’ve sacrificed, what we go through every day. So when yo
u say you’re coming back, I have to know that you actually are. We can hold our attack, but not for long. If Ragjarøn gets wind of people showing up in small towns strategically located near labor farms, they’re going to raid us. They’ll round us up, they’ll ship us to Vårgmannskjør, and they’ll sacrifice us while the whole city watches.” He leans across the counter toward me. “And all that blood will be on your hands.”

  I straighten up in front of him.

  “I said I would come back here, so I will. And yours would not be the only blood I have on my hands. I doubt it will be the last either.” I turn and walk toward the door, pausing for a second with my hand on the knob. “Of all people here, you should know that.” I step through it, leaving him alone.

  After being inside for a little while, the outside is damn near blinding. I squint my eyes so hard I can barely see, most of the street washed out by the sunlight. Funny that we missed it for so long and now I’m cursing it and calling for clouds. My, but how things change.

  I hear shouting at the end of the street, in the field past our lodge, and assume that’s where the boys are. My eyes finally begin to adjust by the time I get down there. Donael and Cobb run around the grass, playing pick-up football with Magnus’s sons and other local kids. They’re using oil barrel trashcans for goals, with no keepers. Even the boy who Donael punched is playing and, surprisingly, it looks like they’re on the same team. Keep your friends close and enemies closer. I laugh as I think that he’d be a good general, then shake the thought away.

  Donael tips the ball away from one of the kids and takes it down the pitch, passing it to Magnus’s older boy then making a slanting run. Magnus’s son chips it up over the defender and Donael stretches out his leg, trying to pull it in, but he’s not quite quick enough and the ball skips away. Everyone yells in various languages as the ball rolls toward the seawall, Donael and one of the other boys sprinting after it.

  Neither of them is fast enough.

  Everyone’s shoulders slump and I can feel the mood change in that moment. Donael and the boy stand at the seawall, looking down. I think it’s a good four-foot drop, depending on the tide. Not too far but farther than either of them can reach. It’d be too far for me as well. Then Donael calls for Axel and Cobb, who does his closest approximation to rocketing across the field, just happy to be involved.

  When they get there, Donael says something to Cobb. He doesn’t look very enthused, but eventually relents because Donael is his big brother. And it’s in that moment that I realize what their plan is. I start to hurry across the field, shouting for them to stop, but I’m too far away and before I make much progress at all, Donael and Axel have already grabbed Cobb by the ankles and flipped him over, lowering him down to the water. I stop running, stop yelling too, because the last thing I want to do is startle either of the boys and have them drop Cobb into the water. I can feel my chest tighten, equal parts anxious that something will go wrong and frightened by how cold that water must be. They hold him there for what feels like ages, until they both crouch down and grab onto his waist, pulling him up with the ball in hand. All the kids cheer as Cobb holds the ball over his head like a trophy, the sun catching water droplets that fall and making them sparkle like crystals. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Cobb radiate joy like he is in this moment. And for a second, I wonder if Walleus can see him.

  Then he tries to boot the ball into midfield but it squirts behind him, rolling to the edge of the water. Everyone yells again and it’s only a quick hand from Donael, standing a couple feet away, that keeps it from getting waterlogged again. Donael tosses the ball back to the other players and pats Cobb on the back, encouraging him to keep playing.

  Donael jogs back into the match, but when he comes up to the edge of the fray, two of the neighborhood kids stop before him and make a fist, thump it against their chest then set the back of their palm next to their forehead. Donael stops running and does the same thing. Then all three of them whip their hands away, huge smiles spread across their faces. They all go back to playing, and I feel the blood draining from my head. I don’t know what that meant, but I recognize a salute when I see one.

  Donael, what have you done?

  I turn around, suddenly glad that I was too far away for them to see me, and hurry away from the pitch and back to our lodging, as if I’d never even been there.

  I head straight to Donael’s room. It’s about the same size as the one he and Cobb shared back home, but here they have their own space. They also have very little in the way of personal possessions, so the rooms look gigantic. A wash of agoraphobia rolls over me. Maybe it’s just all the sun. Maybe it’s my son.

  I search through the few things in here, starting with the bedside table. Looking for pamphlets, chapbooks, flyers, the same types of things we would hand out at the dawn of the Struggle to spread awareness of our cause in the hopes of recruiting new fighters. Nothing.

  I move to his dresser, my worry of him knowing I was looking slipping away as quickly as my panic sets in. He only has a few shirts and a few pairs of pants. Nothing in any of them. I rap my knuckles on the bottoms of the drawers, on the sides, then on the top, looking for false bottoms, safe compartments to hide things. Still nothing.

  I fall back against his wall, sinking down onto my haunches. Maybe I’m just overreacting. It’s the sun. All the light is getting to me, making me see things that aren’t there, read situations and body language in ways I shouldn’t. I don’t even know what I saw, really. They were just kids, doing stupid kid things. This isn’t Eitan. This isn’t the authoritarian, repressive, murderous governance of the Tathadann. Ødven is a bastard and the Nyväg fighters are rightfully sick of him, but they don’t understand what it’s like to truly be oppressed. Not like we were in Eitan. And Donael has seen that, to some degree with Walleus, and every day with me. Not to mention that we’ve already talked about this. A couple times. It’s just in my head, I tell myself again as I push myself up to my knees. I should probably lie down and get some sleep, maybe push on some of the walls here to see if Ragjarøn put any secret rooms in which no sun will shine.

  As I stand up, I see his jacket hanging on the back of the door. He really should be wearing it, despite kids being impervious to the cold, but he’s also running around. He’ll get cold when he stops.

  I take it off the door and something flashes in the light.

  A pin on the left breast of his jacket.

  A shiny black pin, in what I now know is the shape of Brusandhåv. In the center is a bold, red star with the black letters UNV inside them. Ungdømstrüpper Nyväg. The Nyväg Youth Brigade.

  I drop the jacket in the middle of the floor.

  He did it. He joined. He’s part of them.

  I startle as someone starts pounding on the door. Donael’s back. They’ve finished their match. I scramble around the room, straighten his clothes and rehang his jacket on the back of the door because I don’t want him to know that I know, mostly because I don’t know what to do about it yet. I want time to think about it instead of a confrontation from the jump. And Emeríann says I never learn anything.

  When everything in the room looks normal, I head to the front door, calling out, “OK, OK, I heard you, calm down.”

  But when the door swings open it’s not Donael but Magnus, his bulk obscuring most of the light creeping in.

  “I reached Andrei. You have passage for one person on–”

  “One?” I try not to shout, or to whine. “You heard what I said. I need three.”

  “You have passage for one, two days from now,” he repeats, putting extra emphasis on each word, ensuring that I know this is the last time he’ll say this. “It leaves from docks on western port, near football pitch. You be there when he docks, because he doesn’t wait. That is best I can do.”

  I can’t leave Donael and Cobb alone. We barely know any of these people. I’ve taught Donael well enough that they should be able to fend for themselves if I don’t return, which is a real po
ssibility. We’re fighting against organized people who have spent the last six months fighting with us, learning everything about us. For all I know, I’ll be walking into a firing squad. But I can’t let Eitan be destroyed without trying to help save it.

  Could I really leave the boys here? They’d have a better life. The thought of separating the family again after so much time apart and so little time together tears at the inside of my chest. But so does the thought of marching them into a suicide mission.

  I would sacrifice my life for my boys, without a second thought. And I would gladly leave them in a place where I know they would have a better life when I don’t come back from a mission.

  But I can’t do it in this town, because I no longer trust Donael around these kids, around these people. Not after seeing what I saw on his jacket. And I feel like the biggest hypocrite for saying it, especially after giving Dyvik a rack of shit for questioning my commitment to liberating oppressed people. But, as a father, I don’t want Donael within pissing distance of Nyväg. I know how revolutions tend to go. I want my son in school, or in a trade, or somewhere living a quiet, contented life that doesn’t involve roadside bombs and artillery shelling and determining which type of bullet tore your friend’s scalp free of his head.

  In a disgusting twist of fate, the only thing I can think of in this moment is someone I never in a thousand moons thought I would agree with: Belousz, in the alley outside his mother’s apartment. It’s easy to make decisions during peace. But we’re about to start a war.

  All of this passes through my head in a flash, the world outside slowing down to a microscopic pace. But now I know what I have to do.

  “Make the arrangements,” I tell Magnus. “And tell him not to leave without me.”

  As quickly as he came, Magnus leaves without a word. He pauses for a second when he reaches the street, as if he’s about to say something cutting to finally make his point, then decides I’m not worth it and walks away, muttering to himself.

  I close the door quietly; I need the silence. Yes, I know what I need to do. But it does not entail getting on that boat.